Local News

Pressure's On For De Blasio To Solve All NYC's Housing Problems

(Rebecca Fishbein) New Yorkers have their hopes for a more affordable city riding on Mayor de Blasio.

According to a report [pdf] helmed by the Community Service Society of New York (CSS), 63 percent of New Yorkers say that the Bloomberg administration primarily benefitted the wealthy, leaving the middle and lower classes severely underserved—a belief that has been widely supported in the wake of Bloomberg's departure. And the report says the biggest problem has been housing, with Bloomberg's hollow gesture towards affordable housing cancelled out by a heavy focus on high-end real estate development.

Low-income New Yorkers saw the affordable housing stock plummet an average of 39 percent from 2002 to 2011; Brooklyn alone lost 124,700 apartments for low-income residents in that time period. And while the city saw an increase in household income, for the most part low income families saw that increase overshadowed by the high rents. That in turn had a crippling effect on that population, correlating with a dramatic spike in homelessness and an all-around fear that only the rich could survive in New York.

In fact, according to the study, the only group that saw a significant post-rent net income increase were individuals who were initially in the 90th percentile for income, netting an annual $130K or more.